UCD's largest undergraduate degree, and the one place on this list where keeping your options open works exactly as advertised. UCD says plainly that your subject choices are guaranteed.
DN700 is often described as having ten or eleven subjects. It does not. It has four top level options, and most of the named subjects live inside one of them.
| Option | What it is |
|---|---|
| Two Subject Combination where most students go |
Two subjects from the list below, either as a joint major or as a major with a minor |
| Computational Social Science | A named degree. Social science with programming and data at its centre. H4 Maths recommended |
| Economics, Mathematics and Statistics | A named degree, and the most quantitative route in. H3 Maths recommended |
| Philosophy, Politics and Economics | A named degree, three subjects rather than two. O3/H7 Maths recommended |
Single major Economics is a different code, DN710. If a student wants Economics on its own rather than paired, DN700 is not the route.
The published Two Subject Combination shape, using Politics as the worked example:
POL10160, POL10170, INRL10020 and
POL10180SSCI10010 Societal Challenges in the 21st CenturyThat comes to twelve modules and sixty credits at the usual five credits each, though UCD does not state the per-module credit values on that page, so the arithmetic is inferred rather than published.
SSCI10010 is the thing that makes this a social sciences degree
rather than two separate half degrees. Everybody takes it, whichever pair they
picked, and it is where the shared method and framing come from.
Using Politics as the worked example, since it is the combination UCD publishes in full. Every other subject follows the same shape: four foundation modules in the subject, four in your second, and the one module everybody takes.
SSCI10010The major problems social scientists have decided are worth working on, taught as themes that cut across subjects: migration, globalisation and inequality, democracy and the nation state, gender, ageing and demography, employment, and the different models of capitalism and welfare that countries have built. There are tutorials on information and library skills alongside it.
This is the module that makes DN700 a degree rather than two half degrees. Whichever pair you chose, you sit in this one with everybody else.
POL10160How political power works and how groups make decisions together, and how that is shaped by ideas, interests and institutions. Power, the state and the nation, ideologies from liberalism and conservatism through nationalism, feminism and environmentalism, types of regime, electoral systems, and the institutions of government.
POL10180Political theory through changing ideas of democracy, largely via Aristotle, Wollstonecraft, Mill and Marx. Liberty, equality and community, how much participation a democracy needs, and how your view of human nature decides which kind of democracy is possible at all. Closer to philosophy than to the news, which suits some students and surprises others.
POL10170How the research is actually done. Designing a study, collecting data, and knowing when a conclusion is justified. Research design, the standard methods, visualising statistics, and the practical and ethical problems that come with researching people. The most transferable module in the year, and the one that turns a social sciences degree into an employable one.
INRL10020Contemporary international politics and how the modern international system was built, with the weight on the period since the Cold War. War and conflict between states, global trade, migration, economic inequality, integration, terrorism, human rights, the United Nations, and the multinationals and pressure groups that operate across borders.
Descriptions above are shortened and rewritten in plain English from UCD's official module descriptors. The modules for other subject combinations follow the same pattern but are not published in the same detail, so ask for the module list for your specific pair.
Inside the Two Subject Combination there are two ways to hold your subjects, and the difference shows up in the later years rather than the first.
| Shape | The split |
|---|---|
| Joint major | Even. 25 credits in each subject in Stage 3 and again in Stage 4. For comparison, a single major student does 50 in the one subject |
| Major with a minor | 30 credits in one subject and 20 in the other This figure comes from a UCD page we could not read directly, only through a search index. Confirm it before relying on it. |
You choose at CAO application. In Stage 1 you study the subjects or pathway you named when you applied.
UCD's published line is that your subject choices are guaranteed, and there are options to change subject choices at the end of first year if you wish. No competitive allocation, no capped streams. On the evidence, that is true.
Changing is a process, not a click. It runs through a Stage 2 in-programme transfer, and it has conditions:
That last condition is the one to plan for. If there is any chance you will want to swap into a subject, spend one of your first year options on it. Five credits is a single module, and without it the door is shut whatever your results.
Progression needs 60 credits, though you may progress on 50 if the Stage 2 subject requirements are met.
Data science applied to people: policy analysis, market and social research, technology firms, and the public service. One of the more employable social science routes in the country, and still not widely known.
Economic analysis, financial services, actuarial work, the Central Bank, the ESRI and the Department of Finance. The quantitative end of DN700 and a direct competitor to a business degree for those roles.
The civil and diplomatic service, policy, journalism, consultancy and law conversion. Three subjects rather than two, which is more work and a broader graduate.
Social research, policy, community and voluntary work, HR, and the public service. Pairs well with almost anything on this list.
Planning, environmental consultancy, GIS and spatial analysis, local authority work and climate policy. The GIS skills alone are worth the pairing.
Commercial archaeology tied to planning and infrastructure, heritage bodies, museums and research. Ireland has a real market for this because of the licensing regime around development.
The Oireachtas and political advisory work, the diplomatic service, EU institutions, NGOs, journalism and think tanks.
Law conversion, policy, ethics and compliance roles, journalism, and increasingly technology ethics and AI governance. Trains the reasoning rather than a trade.
NGOs, human rights, community development, advocacy and campaigning, and social policy in the public service.
Information management, librarianship and archives, UX research, digital media and content strategy. The most vocational subject in the list.
Finance, data, actuarial work and teaching. Paired with a social science it makes an unusually employable combination.
Data analysis, clinical trials, the Central Statistics Office, market research and actuarial work. Consistently in demand and consistently overlooked, because few students meet it before college.
Six of these are also DN520 subjects. Archaeology, Geography, Philosophy, Sociology, Information and Communication Studies and Statistics appear under both codes. If you want two of them together, DN700 is the cleaner route and does not need a third language. If you want one of them with English or a language, that is DN520.
Ask at the open day: if I might want to swap into a subject in second year, which first year module should I take now to keep it possible, and what is the difference in practice between a joint major and a major with a minor.
Checked against UCD on 24 August 2026. Points are 2025 entry. Sources: the UCD SPIRe page for the joint and single major BSc, the UCD College of Social Sciences and Law programme information and in-programme transfer pages, the UCD course record for the BSc Social Sciences, myUCD, and the Qualifax record for DN700, which reproduces the UCD Undergraduate Prospectus 2026.
Two figures are marked as unconfirmed above and should be checked before a student acts on them: the 30 and 20 credit split for a major with a minor, and the exact guarantee wording. Both come from search index extractions of UCD pages that return no content when fetched directly. The substance is consistent across several sources; the precise numbers are not something we could read for ourselves.